


The Bird With Four Lives

by wakeupstiles



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Character Death, F/F, Heartbreak, LITERALLY, and how it's stopped, but it does not go into detail at all, but it's still fucking sad, i cried writing this okay, like major, my version of s3, read and weep, with the bomb and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5419781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakeupstiles/pseuds/wakeupstiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One could only cheat Death so many times before it eventually caught you. This time, it's caught Raven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bird With Four Lives

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been swirling in my head ever since the s2 final.

Raven could do anything; she was an un-stoppable hurricane, deadly and quick, destroying anything and everything and anyone who dared get in her way. She was brilliant, scarily so. She’d saved their asses more times than she could count since being on the ground. In blatant terms, they would have died without her. She knew this. They knew this.

Clarke may have killed everyone in Mount Weather, but it was Raven who set all those actions in motion, which was why Raven was the only one for this job. She was the only one who could save the world.

One final time.

 

* * *

 

 

_“How the hell did I end up here?”_

She once asked herself that question as she was sitting in searing pain in the Drop Ship, bleeding out as the whole world went to hell around her. She knew the answer then, because she was the only one who could fix a rusty old pod and get down to earth to help Clarke and the other delinquents survive, and she knew the answer now, too; she was the only one who could stop a goddamn missile from shooting across the ocean and blowing up Camp Jaha and the various grounder clans in the area.

So, in short, she kept ending up in those situations because she had to save the world. Save the goddamn world that never did a goddamn thing for her. And a bunch of goddamn people who never gave a shit about her (okay, so some of them did). Her intelligence was a blessing and a curse, she’d come to realize a few months ago.

Right now it was looking more so like a fucking curse than anything else.

“How do we turn it off?” Clarke asked, trying her damnedest to keep her voice level. She failed miserably, but Raven didn’t make a sarcastic comment because who in their right mind could keep a calm voice and a neutral attitude when in the face of a missile that was ten minutes from flying off and detonating the new world they had built for themselves?

Hint: no one.

When Raven didn’t say anything, Clarke dropped down to her knees beside her dark haired friend and said, urgently, “ _Raven,_ ”

She held a hand up to silence Clarke, which the blonde did not take kindly to, but shut up anyway because _I need silence to think, Clarke._ Even though Raven didn’t vocalize it, Clarke could hear her say it as plain as day in her head. So she stayed quiet, watched Raven’s eyes scan over the wires of the missile, watched her face fall and her throat bob up and down in a large, dry gulp.

“What?” Clarke questioned, her voice small and paper thin.

Raven turned to the pale woman, her eyes wide in fear because she knew what she had to do and she was terrified. Usually she was good at hiding her fear, great at it even, because if she put on a brave face and acted like everything was fine then she would start to believe it and panic less, which made everyone else panic less because Raven was the collected one, the one who always had a plan, the one who could get them out of anything.

She had a plan this time, of course, and she could get them out of this mess, obviously, but that didn’t mean that she _liked_ what she would have to do.

“I,” Raven closed her mouth before her voice cracked. She swallowed again, took a deep breath, looked Clarke in the eyes. “I know what I have to do.”

“Then _do it._ ” Clarke urged.

“I—“ Raven shut her eyes, exhaled long and hard through her nose. When she opened them back up, tears were glistening in the corners of her eyelids. And that’s when Clarke knew; she exhaled as if the wind had been knocked out of her, rolled back on the balls of her feet, gave Raven the most heartbreaking look the woman had ever seen.

“How?” Clarke questioned.

“There’s no kill switch. This technology is beyond what we had on the Ark; it’s beyond what I know, so I can’t make a kill switch, not with this little time frame we have, but I can rewire it so that the missile doesn’t take off. Make it so that it just goes off in this place. It’s gonna be messy because I don’t have enough time but if I do some things I’m not going to explain because you won’t understand,” Raven’s voice broke off as she took a deep breath, gathered her thoughts. In any other situation Clarke would have glared at her for that comment, but as it was, she could only watch her with sorrow. Finally, Raven continued, “And if I hold certain wires together then it’ll just…everything will be _fine._ ” She finished, her voice falling apart.

“There’s no other way?” Clarke asked, though she knew it was true before she got an answer. Raven simply shook her head, her eyes downcast to the floor. “Raven,” Her friend spoke softly, her voice breaking. She put her hand on her shoulder and Raven looked up at her, her lips quirking up in a small half smile.

The dark skinned woman nodded, swiped her arm across her eyes, cleared her throat. “Could, you, uh, go get Octavia? We have…seven minutes.” Clarke nodded, got to her feet, and went to fetch the younger girl.

Raven stayed sitting, glaring at the thing that was about to cause her demise. She supposed she lived a good life, as short as it had been; sure everything kind of got screwed up when she came to earth, but at the same time a lot of good came out of it, too. For instance, she met Octavia, the girl she absolutely fell in love with. They’d been together for a few months, either seven or eight. Raven didn’t know the exact date. In those months Raven was the happiest. Octavia was fierce and fiery, much like her, and she was passionate and opinionated and loud and didn’t back down—and a fighter, god that woman was a fighter. They were a lot alike, she and Octavia, which was why they fit together so well.

It was short, their story, but it was epic.

Raven didn’t want it to end, but she knew it had to. The world was a stake.

“Raven,” She looked up and saw Octavia race into the room, Clarke and Bellamy behind her, both looking defeated. She assumed Clarke told Bellamy what was about to happen, so he came to drag his sister away when it was time. Raven knew Octavia wouldn’t willingly leave her, not without putting up a fight. Octavia’s face fell when she saw the tears trickling down her girlfriend’s face. She dropped to her knees in front of her, panic exuding from all of her features. “No, no, you can’t.” She begged, cupping Raven’s face with her warm hands.

Raven closed her eyes, leaned into the touch. “I have to.”

Octavia gave her cheeks a little squeeze. “But why _you?_ Why does it have to be _you?_ ”

She opened her eyes, smiled sadly. “Because, I save the world.”

Octavia let go of her face, leaned back on her knees, her expression a mixture of heartbreak and fury. “Now you have a hero complex?” She hissed angrily. Raven stayed silent. Octavia put the heels of her hands to her temples, squeezed her eyes shut, screamed internally. “Goddamn it, Raven.” She groaned, her body shaking violently. When she looked back up at her, her eyes were already bloodshot from crying. “I can’t—I can’t—“ Her voice choked off and she grabbed the other woman into a tight hug, digging her nails into her clothes, never wanting to let go. “ _I can’t._ ” She whispered breathlessly in her ear.

Raven slowly wrapped her arms around Octavia’s shoulder, whispered back, “ _You can._ ” She hated what she was doing to her. Hated all the pain she’d now caused, all the heartache she would be responsible for. Octavia was strong, but even strong people broke when they were pushed too far.

The long haired girl pulled away from Raven, her eyes puffy. She smiled through her tears, shook her head and confessed with a little shrug, “I don’t want to.”

Raven ran a hand through Octavia’s braided hair, cupped her cheek softly, running her thumb over the tender skin, smiled back. “You have to.”

Octavia shook her head. “I refuse it.”

“Don’t be so goddamn stubborn.” Raven mumbled, leaning in and kissing her girlfriend’s forehead softly. Octavia collapsed into her, locked her arms around her waist.

“This whole ‘I die so you can live’ thing is bullshit.” She muttered, looking up at her. Raven smirked, leaned down and kissed her slowly and gently on the lips. It was a goodbye kiss, an I love you kiss, a please don’t resent me kiss. But she knew she would, anyway. So much pain in this new world, and they’d made it through it all, the two of them, together. But now it would just be one getting through the turmoil. Raven knew Octavia could do it; she was a warrior, and despite how much the girl’s heart was breaking she knew it would mend. With time. How much time, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have enough of _her_ time to find out.

Raven broke the kiss, whispered into her hair, “I die. You all can live.” Then she looked up at Bellamy, nodded and pushed Octavia away from her. Bellamy swooped down before realization hit the younger girl, and as he looped his arms securely around her waist and pulled her up she started kicking and screaming, trying to break free to get to Raven, who had turned her head away in shame, not wanting to watch as the love of her life was forced out of the room.

“No! No! Goddamn it, put me down! Put me the fuck down! B _ELLAMY PUT ME DOWN!_ Raven—please— _RAVEN!_ No, you can’t— _Raven!!_ ”

Octavia’s high frantic screams echoed down the corridor as Bellamy dragged his thrashing sister out of the building. Raven wanted to break. Wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair, that none of this war fair, ask what gods she’d pissed off for it to end this way, for the universe to give her something so beautiful only for all of it to be ripped away from her in an instant. Wanted to demand why it all had to end this way, why she couldn’t have something magical and keep it. Why the bad always outweighed the good.

_Why the hell was it always her?_

_How the hell could it all lead to this?_

“Raven,” Clarke’s low voice brought Raven out of her head and self pitying thoughts. She snapped her neck up to look at the blonde, who was doing little to hide the tears that were pouring out of her eyes.

Raven gave a little smile. “Hurry up and save the world, right?”

“Is there no other way?” She asked again, not that she would get a different answer, she knew, but she held on to the false hope that _maybe_ , just maybe…

Raven sighed, shook her head and turned back to the missile. She looked at the floor as she spoke. “Just…please, Clarke, watch over Octavia? Don’t…don’t let her get reckless.” Because that’s who Octavia was; while Raven was a hurricane, precise and calculated, Octavia was a tsunami; reckless and violent and suffocating and damning; when she felt she felt with her whole being and when she grieved she grieved in blood, ready to attack anything that got in her way.

The dark haired woman jumped a little when she felt lips on her cheek. Clarke pulled away, put her hand on her friend’s shoulder, gave a sad, sad smile. “Get the fuck out of here.” Raven motioned with her head towards the exit door. “Far. You only have three minutes before this place blows.” Clarke nodded, and without another word she left the room, and without looking back she shut the door and ran out of the tunnel to join the others outside.

Raven turned back to the missile and through the tears in her eyes she began furiously working to rewire the bomb so that it would only go off in the building and not end the world. Again.

She came to the conclusion that Death, the bastard, didn’t like her very much. Maybe it was the fact that the many times it tried to take her, she’d escaped, but just barely.

The first time when the Grounders had sent a virus into the camp.

The second time when Murphy had shot her in the back and she’d almost bled out in the Drop Ship.

The third time when she blew up the turbines under Mount Weather.

The fourth time when she was getting drilled into for bone marrow.

But this time, fifth time, well, Death finally got what it wanted after all.

She looked at the timer. Thirty seconds remaining. She inhaled shakily, shut her eyes, pictured Octavia’s face in her head. That bright smile, those white teeth, her tan skin, her long dark brown hair cascading down her back, decorated in several tiny braids. Her sweet laugh, her carefree spirit. Her soft hands, her gentle touches.

Raven smiled, and then everything was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

A loud boom exploded in the sky, bringing with it fire and a dust storm. Clarke and the others jumped, dashed to the ground and covered their heads so that the debris wouldn’t damage them anymore so than they already were. It lasted a second; it was there and then it was gone and then the world was silent again.

They stood, looked back at the place they had just left. They’d made it far enough away so that they wouldn’t die from the explosion, but still close enough so that they could see the flames that now stood in the place of the building their friend was once in.

Octavia screamed, a dark, animalistic sound from deep within her chest. She tried to run back to the fire, but Bellamy grabbed her waist, held on tight, brought her down to the ground where she gripped the grass tightly and sobbed with her whole body. Clarke looked up at the bright sky which was now filling with smoke, tears streaming down her face. Then she shut her eyes, held her breath, and let herself fall to her knees in mourning.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you cry? I cried.


End file.
